Origins

In Proto-Northwest Semitic there were still three voiceless fricatives: uvular ḫ, glottal h, and pharyngeal ḥ. In the Wadi el-Hol script, these appear to be expressed by derivatives of the following Egyptian hieroglyphs

Arabic hāʾ

The letter is named hāʾ. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word:

Isolated

Final

Medial

Initial

Glyph form:

ه‎

ـه‎

ـهـ‎

هـ‎

Hāʾ is used as a suffix (with the harakat dictated by ʾIʿrab) indicating possession, indicating that the noun marked with the suffix belongs to a specific masculine possessor; for example, كِتَابkitāb ("book") becomes كِتَابُهُkitābuhu ("his book") with the addition of final hāʾ; the possessor is implied in the suffix. A longer example, هُوَ يَقْرَأُ كِتَابَهُ, (huwa yaqraʼu kitābahu, "he reads his book") more clearly indicates the possessor. Hāʾ is also used as the Arabic abbreviation for dates following the Islamic era AH.

In Nastaʿlīq the letter has its own particular shapes. As Urdu and other languages of Pakistan are usually written in Nastaʿlīq, they normally employ those shapes, which are given an independent code point (U+06C1) for compatibility:

Position in word:

Isolated

Final

Medial

Initial

Glyph form:

ہ‎

ـہ‎

ـہـ‎

ہـ‎

For aspiration Urdu and other languages of Pakistan use a special form of hāʾ, called in Urdu do chashmī he ("two-eyed he"):

Position in word:

Isolated

Final

Medial

Initial

Glyph form:

ھ‎

ـھ‎

ـھـ‎

ھـ‎

Many Turkic languages of Central Asia like Uyghur as well as Kurdish use the modification of the letter for front vowels /æ/ or /ɛ/. This has its own code point (U+06D5). To distinguish it from Arabic hāʾ /h/ the letter lacks its initial and medial forms:

Pronunciation

Also, in many variant Hebrew pronunciations the letter may represent a glottal stop. In word-final position, He is used to indicate an a-vowel, usually that of qamatz (ָ‎), and in this sense functions like Aleph, Vav, and Yud as a mater lectionis, indicating the presence of a long vowel.

He, along with Aleph, Ayin, Resh, and Heth, cannot receive a dagesh. Nonetheless, it does receive a marking identical to the dagesh, to form He-mappiq (הּ‎). Although indistinguishable for most modern speakers or readers of Hebrew, the mapiq is placed in a word-final He to indicate that the letter is not merely a mater lectionis but the consonant should be aspirated in that position. It is generally used in Hebrew to indicate the third-person feminine singular genitive marker. Today, such a pronunciation only occurs in religious contexts and even then often only by careful readers of the scriptures.

In Judaism

He is often used to represent the name of God, as He stands for Hashem, which means The Name and is a way of saying God without actually saying the name of God. In print, Hashem is usually written as He with a geresh: ה׳.

Syriac Heh

Heh

Madnḫaya Heh

Serṭo Heh

Esṭrangela Heh

In the Syriac alphabet, the fifth letter is ܗ — Heh (ܗܹܐ). It is pronounced as an [h]. At the end of a word with a point above it, it represents the third-personfemininesingularsuffix. Without the point, it stands for the masculine equivalent. Standing alone with a horizontal line above it, it is the abbreviation for either hānoh (ܗܵܢܘܿ), meaning 'this is' or 'that is', or halelûya (ܗܵܠܹܠܘܼܝܵܐ). As a numeral, He represents the number five.